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22 January 2009

In the past 24 hours

Gabriel fell down the stairs. The steep, terrifying, basement stairs at my parents' house. He fell from the top, all the way down to the concrete floor at the bottom. I heard the crash, and then the silence before the screams start, which is so much worse than when the screams are instantaneous. He is fine. He has a bloody scrape next to his eye. It's not too ugly, but he's an extremely careful child, and hardly ever hurts himself, so it's alarming to look at all the same. He's since been going down stairs by scooting on his bottom.

Last night Gabriel slept like a baby. I mean that literally. He woke up every 20 or 30 minutes whimpering and fussing until around 5am, when he finally slept soundly. I called in sick today. It was the sickness of headache and exhaustion.

Driving south on Bay, I passed a coyote running north. He looked lost.

I went to the toy store. I saw about a thousand things that would be perfect for Gabriel. In the absence of one thing that was the most perfect of all, I left with nothing.

At the dry cleaners, I was picking up a sweater. Someone got all their t-shirts dry cleaned. One says, "My other car is a Harley." Another says, "Raider Nation." Who are you?